The Dragon Ball franchise is the Trope Codifier for modern shounen action series, including its villains. Most of them are Card Carrying Villains who do things out of the heck of it, but not too evil. And there are some who were created evil and do some questionable things. Then there are the few who are so twisted that they are memorable for being so ungodly demented and cruel and lacking the morals/mercy of their fellow villains, who are either horrified and can't do anything about it or actually admire the person due to their overwhelming power.

Android Arc: Cell, an Ultimate Lifeform created by Dr. Gero, inherited Frieza's sociopathicsadism and Vegeta's pride. He goes around towns eating thousands of people with his tail just to increase his powers, the last of the victims having his ordeal disturbingly prolonged in order to give him absolute fear of being absorbed. Cell then absorbs Androids 17 and 18, resulting in Cell going One-Winged Angel. Though Cell was programmed to kill, several Androids proved that Gero's creations can have moral agency; in addition, Cell takes a sadistic pleasure in killing, as shown when he starts "the Cell Games," just to hold off destroying Earth so that he can see everyone's faces contort in terror and states that he would've hunted every single person on Earth one by one if he won, after which he would then destroy Earth and then go on to other planets. Cell beats Gohan to near death and creates "Cell Juniors" to torture the other Z Fighters so that he can transform to his Superpowered Evil Side, which he succeeds by destroying Android 16 in front of him. When the fight stopped going his way, he tried to destroy the world with his self-destruct sequence, forcing Goku to perform a Heroic Sacrifice.

Super Buu, the later form of Evil Buu, has the evil of Kid Buu but, unlike Fat Buu, who is too childish to know better, has the ability to understand about his own evil, he just doesn't care. Once made eloquently intelligent by Piccolo, he actually lamented killing off all of humanity earlier because destroying their cities wasn't as fun without them screaming. When told by Piccolo to go kill off some humans to buy some time for Goten and Trunks to master the fusion technique, his response, out of impatience, is to fire a barrage of energy that locks on and kills every human outside of Kami Tower except Hercule; this is conveniently called Human Extinction Attack, because it fired as many blasts needed to bring the human race to extinction . He also turns Chichi into an egg to smash it because she was annoying him. Once he's fed up, he turns Krillin and everyone except Gotenks and Piccolo into candy and eats them alive. Finally, once he does have Piccolo's intelligence, despite being superior to a Gohan who had trounced him earlier, he beats him senseless while using Piccolo's teachings to mess with his head.

Resurrection F Arc: Frieza is even MORE of a monster in this retelling of Resurrection 'F'. After Tagoma suggests that Frieza forget about the Saiyans, Frieza critically injures him and forcefully makes him his "sparring partner" for his training, torturing Tagoma to the brink of death every day for the next four months. After reaching Earth, Frieza tells his men that whoever kills Krillin will get their own planet, knowing how much Krillin means to Goku. Frieza tortures Gohan by shooting him with energy beams, and is highly amused when Piccolo gets in the way of the blasts to save Gohan. When Frieza hears that Gohan has a family, he promises to kill them too, and orders Ginyu to kill Goten and Trunks. When Goku arrives, Frieza states that after he destroys Earth, he will destroy New Namek as well so there is no way to undo his evil acts. Before fighting Goku, Frieza kills all his minions just to demonstrate his power. Frieza fires blasts at Goku's friends just to distract him. Just like in the movie, he tries to destroy Earth when he finds himself cornered, and actually succeeds before Whis rewinds time like in the film.

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